I'm planning to use the Beginner Ironman workout on beginnertriathlete.com, but that plan doesn't kick in until next Monday. In the mean time I've just been mixing up my workouts and trying to work on some of my weaknesses.
Last year was all about building endurance on the swim. I've got plenty of drills for improving the efficiency of my stroke, and I've done enough laps to feel somewhat confident in my ability to last in the longer races. But I've had problems in the speed department.
To fix this, I've been doing some more repeat workouts - repeats, ladders, whatever - anything to break things up and push the pace a little. So, today's goal in the pool was to do 10-15 100 yard repeats at 1:50 each.
I started with a 500 yard moderately paced warmup. Two other swimmers had claimed the middle lanes, so I was stuck in one of the side lanes, which means dealing with some pretty intense water jets. This made the 'outbound' lengths a bit harder, but the return lengths were a breeze with the jets pushing me all the way back.
I did some light stretching and fidgeted with my Garmin to set up an alarm every 1:50. I wanted to keep my repeats consistent, which meant holding back just a tad for the first couple of laps. My first lap came in at 1:32. Which, needless to say, was not going to be sustainable, I pulled back just a hair for laps 2 and 3 where I came in at 1:42 and 1:41. Okay, that's better.
As the repeats continued, keeping that pace got more and more difficult. Well, duh. By the time I got to lap 10, I had a pretty good side stitch going. At the end of lap 10 another swimmer asked to share lanes. Bless her heart for being polite about it, but with only 8 seconds before the start of my next repeat, I didn't exactly have time to share life stories. My half of the conversation sounded something like "Share? Yeah, yeah, okay, me on the left, yeah, ok, okaygottago!" I hope she didn't think I was being rude. Though, I did let her take the side AWAY from those water jets, thankyouverymuch.
Ah well. I finished up 2 more repeats and then decided to call it a day. I did another easy 500 yards as a cooldown and then headed to the showers.
I headed home from the gym and found that I had about 30 minutes left before The Wife got home, so I decided to head out for a quick run. The weather report is calling for rain through the middle of the week, and I detest running in the rain, so it was time to hit the road.
I kicked it into gear and trotted over to a park exactly 1.1 miles from the house. Last year, the same run took me 11 minutes. Today, I came in at 9:22. Not too shabby. I did some light stretching for a minute or two and then headed out for another 2.3 miles around the neighborhood and back to the house. I took it easier through the end of the ride, but still made sure to keep it under 10 minutes per mile (don't want to keep The Wife waiting after all).
That's it for today. It's time to re-introduce my butt to the recliner and soak in the Butler-Duke game. Weather permitting, tomorrow will be a bike ride after work. I'm thinking of doing some hills down in Minnetonka. We'll see.
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